Joseph Cornell [Hardcover]

Kynaston McShine (Editor), Dawn Ades (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1990

Joseph Cornell remains one of the most popular artists of the 20th century. This work provides an insight into the artist's remarkable inner world: a universe populated with empty cages, mirrors, clay pipes, postage stamps, marbles, thimbles and paper scraps, Cornell collected in his basement repository and fashioned into self-contained constructions, montages, collages and films. The artist's relationship to both American and European Romanticism, his involvement with the Surrealist movement, the peculiar mechanics of his work, and a glimpse at his cinematic explorations are accompanied by an illuminating biography and numerous illustrations. This survey brings to life the work of a brilliant artist whose imaginative re-ordering of the world's chaos is still as inspirational as ever.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book offers a lush look at an American original." -- The Indianapolis News

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Museum of Modern Art / Prestel; reprint edition (April 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3791310631
• ISBN-13: 978-3791310633
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #293,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Compromise, June 20, 2000

By 

Megan Ritchie (Auckland, New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joseph Cornell (Hardcover)

If you seen the work of Joseph Cornell before and loved it then you will find much to learn from in this book. But, I'm not sure readers encountering Cornell for the first time through this book will be won over. The detailed text by McShine is thorough, covering his life, his surrealist box constructions, collages and cinema. A huge amount of his work is reproduced, and an extensive bibliography are included. However, most of the plates are in black and white, with only a handful of colour photographs of his work. Moreover, the photographs of his work lack depth, so the three-dimensional tactile qualities of his enigmatic box constructions are lost. Perhaps these qualities would be difficult to convey in any photographs. So, it is not the perfect Joseph Cornell book. But the writing is interesting and I still loved looking at the less-than-ideal reproductions of his work.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If You Like Cornell, You'll Like the Book, August 9, 2006

By 

E. Saenz "Prove It" (LA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Joseph Cornell (Hardcover)

I've been a fan of Joseph Cornell ever since I discovered him at the Chicago Art Institute. But, like many of you, I thought all he did was shadowboxes. But, oh no. The rich illustrations showed me treatments, themes, and directions I had no idea the artist had ever worked in. The surprises were rather pleasant.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable document from MOMA, November 4, 2007

By 

R. T. Greene (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Contents include the editor's introduction and four significant essays: "the Trancendental Surrealism of JC" by Dawn Ades; "JC: Mechanic of the Ineffable" by a frenziedly allusive Carter Ratcliffe, which among other things places JC in an American context, amongst Thoreau, Dickinson and the Puritans (!); "The Cinematic Gaze of JC" by P. Adams Sitney, a perceptive and authoritative survey of Cornell's films; and "JC: A Biography" by Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. These texts are heavily illustrated with unique supporting visual material. The plates of Cornell's work are unremarkable but there is the usual impeccable and thorough MOMA bibliography and checklist.